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Welcome to my blog.

Essentially what this blog contains is my Philosophical ideas on what it means to be human in today's world. Over the many months I have been making entries, I have focused primarily on the individual's responsibility to self. A major aspect of one's responsibility to the self, I believe, is making an effort to become conscious. A part of that endeavor is discovering what one has, over time, allowed oneself to become. To, in other words, to encourage the asking of the question, "Who am I?"

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About Me

I am currently retired, more or less; mostly less right now, unfortunately. I am a jewelry artisan-designer, a creative person, a philosopher, and a writer, among other things. I have spent a major part of my life educating myself on many subjects. My primary interests are understanding human behavior and Art. I have great respect for those who are self-educated; which has been a life-long occupation of mine. In addition to educating myself, I have attended a number of schools of higher education, and have accumulated a B.A. in Human Services, and a Masters in Art Therapy, over the years.
In the mid-70s and into the 80s I did a lot of writing, initially putting together a manuscript I titled: "You in the Process of Becoming; A Guide to the Self." After that, I let my writing lapse; this blog has been my re-entry into the field of writing. Currently, I also have articles published on the Self Growth website, as well as have published articles on the Ezine Articles website.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Back
in 2012, I posted a blog entry with the title, Hang In There! While
perhaps prescient concerning the future, things haven't gotten much
better; thankfully, we are still here in 2016, and I don't even
remember, literally, any of what was taking place around then! Wait,
it's all coming back to me!

Unfortunately, on the war front, we are still experiencing the
reverberations from that time, much of it harder to wrap my/our minds
around. Back then, I wrote that, "the only constant in life is change," then I was inclined to say that, "the more things change, the more
they stay the same." Now I think everything is going to change!

It has been said that we humans, including
myself, are creatures of habit; we don't like change. So, tough! I
guess. Personally, I am trying to maintain as positive an attitude as
possible, trying to stay out of negative thinking.

While, I suppose, most of we humans would prefer to arrange our lives so
that there are no surprises, life's little and big surprises are
usually what spices up our lives by introducing change. Whether we want
it or not. Back, at the turn of the century, I expected major changes. Those major changes
still have to yet appear in the surface reality in which we live, yet. They are, however, real.

Just what is surface reality, anyway? It seems to boil down to what each of us
believes to be true--what we were taught in our history and science
books, what is believed to be humanly possible. What will make having
surface reality change hard is each of our Belief Systems. We want to
keep our Belief Systems in tact. We want to hold on to the idea that we
live in a predictable and stable world. (If the last years haven't
caused any doubts about that, perhaps this year or next will do it.) My
advice is to begin to do some, "what if, then what" thinking about our
lives.

In this blog, I have encouraged the reader to examine their beliefs, and to take on an attitude that, instead of being facts,
to change them to a status of, "as if true." An interview I saw
on the Internet, corresponding to my advice, was to assign what one
believes to a number on a scale of 0 to 10, with false being maybe a 0,
and, "it has happened", a 10. (Keep in mind that, a non-belief in
something, is also a belief.)

An example given of adopting such a system was a belief that, "my
wife/husband loves me." If you believe that at a 10, or totally, you
will be totally devastated if she/he asks you for a divorce. (I think
that is good advice, considering that, now, many marriages do not last
even a decade.) If you had held that belief at a 7, 8, or 9, you might
not be so totally wasted by being asked for a divorce. (Also, it would,
hopefully, tend to keep one from taking a wife/husband for granted.)
This comes under the heading of: "Assume nothing!" in my philosophy of
life.

A belief at the other end of the scale, might be a non-belief in God.
As to that belief, in science recently there has been talk of a "God Particle". In that regard, I
read a very interesting book recently making a case for the universe
being conscious. (Is that a disturbing thought, or not? For me, not.)

As almost all humans rely on their Belief Systems, which are usually
established about the time they complete what is called their,
"education" to get them through their days. Unfortunately, they are not
going to help anyone deal with the upcoming reality, except through the
tried-and-true reflex of denial, (as they say, "not a river in Egypt").

As to that upcoming reality. Most have some knowledge about our modern
GMO, frankenfoods, and non-prescription, "recreation," drugs, as well as disturbing information such as in the Wikileaks, and the
development of robotics, but generally have heard little, except
denials, about what is known about anything, "controversial."

Those who want to learn some of what's really been going on in this
world, have recently been provided with a trove of (former) secrets, now known
as, "Wikileaks," courtesy of Edward Snowden. Now, just this week, a
mass of, "millions of files," have been released naming people who have
squirreled away vast amounts of money in offshore accounts called the
Panama papers. It has been called the biggest such release yet, and,
which has already led to the resignations of Iceland's Prime Minister.
And, apparently, is being banned from the public in China and Russia.

Take the subject of robots, something that used to be a topic for
Science Fiction; now they are a growing reality; or Artificial
Intelligence, or other various,"Science Fiction" ideas becoming
reality.

Are you mentally prepared to absorb such things as a new reality. I,
personally, am very disturbed, by nanotechnology. Nanotechnology
("nanotech") is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular,
and supramolecular scale. There has been so much new development in
nanotech, it has been reported that those working in this field do not bother to patent anything, developments are growing so fast. For most people all this flows under what's in awareness--the radar of our ordinary
reality.

What I am suggesting in this blog, is to try to be prepared for
the unexpected, as all the indicators I have seen/read/heard-about
strongly suggest that is what is in our near future, and not science fiction.